The present invention relates generally to communication systems and more particularly to a method for scheduling a future time for a communication session when a called party is presently unable or unwilling to accept an incoming call.
In a communications system, a called party (User B) is occasionally presently unable or unwilling to accept an incoming call from a calling party (User A), but may wish to engage in a communication session with the calling party at a later scheduled time. For example, User B may want to discuss some matter with User A, but User B is currently meeting with an important customer and it would be imprudent to interrupt that meeting to accept an incoming call from User A. Rather than relying on the vagaries of returning User A's call at some indeterminate time in the future, it may be more efficient for User B and User A to jointly schedule a particular time in the future for the call. Once again, interrupting the meeting with the important customer to overtly schedule the subsequent call may be inappropriate. Instead, it may be more beneficial if the scheduling can occur automatically, at least with respect to User B. At present, no such capability exists in the marketplace with respect to such situations. Accordingly, there remains a need for an improved approach to scheduling a time for a subsequent communications session when a called party is unable or unwilling to accept an incoming call.